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At "The Hangover 2" premiere, Crystal the capuchin monkey was the first celebrity to head down the carpet Thursday outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre, perched atop her trainer's shoulder and dressed in a Barbie-pink couture gown by Deb Scott with a smart string of pearls. Jumping around impishly, she was greeted with screams of, "Oh my God! Look! Too cute!"

That was pretty much the identical reaction that Bradley Cooper received when he first appeared on the carpet, only to leave it to run up and down Hollywood Boulevard -- there's a picture down below -- past a thick line of ecstatic fans.

Soon, and perhaps for different reasons, it was also the type of reaction that costars Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis got as they strode down the carpet alongside Mike Tyson, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong and franchise newcomers Mason Lee and Jamie Chung.

As Hollywood premieres go, this was a big one, with all of Hollywood Boulevard between the Roosevelt Hotel and Hollywood and Highland closed off for a carpet that ran half its length. It became impossible for bypassers to walk the street, and the stars arrived so late that most of them were rushed past half the press line to get into the theater at 8 p.m., already a half an hour past the planned start time.

With the leading men doling out plenty of bro-pats and hugs, jokes ricocheted around the boulevard. There was speculation about whether Crystal could beat up Po in "Kung Fu Panda 2" (this weekend's other big premiere), with Jeong saying he was placing his bets on the monkey.

"I'll take the monkey, man! Monkey, monkey, monkey!" he chanted.

There was also plenty of buzz about how "The Hangover 2" creators could possibly come up with a second part to a conceit that was based on the day after a substance-induced group blackout. Co-writer Craig Mazin said it was indeed a tough challenge.

"All we knew from the start was that we wanted to be in Bangkok," he said of the sequel, which picks up with the Wolfpack in that notoriously wild city for Doug's wedding, where a supposedly mellow pre-wedding brunch goes terribly awry.

"The thing about 'The Hangover' is that it's always about the day after," Mazin said, "so the first thing we had to figure out was if someone should be missing."

One thing not missing at the premiere? A powerful sense that Warner Bros. Pictures has another big summer hit on its hands.